


Inhalants

by periferal



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Non-Linear Narrative, Other, Poison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 06:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8238767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/periferal/pseuds/periferal
Summary: A mission goes horribly wrong, poison gas is released and a person dies. There's a lot of money in it though. Basically, one theory among many on the pressing subject of "what happened to mason wu between those backstory episodes and felix and locus appearing"?





	

“Just fucking shoot me!” 

There’s a strange, frozen grin on Mason’s face. His eyes are wide and rigid, staring neither at nor through Isaac. He’s restrained, tied to a chair with loops around his arms and legs. His wrists are bruised and almost bleeding. 

Isaac has no idea what the fuck to do. 

Sam stands without expression by the only exit. This room has no windows. After all, Isaac remembers Mason saying, “we need someplace to put the really crazy ones if we can’t kill ‘em.” That was way in the beginning. 

Before this horror show. 

“Come on, man, just fucking shoot me,” Mason repeats. His voice is high and whiny, unlike anything Isaac’s ever heard from him. 

“What the hell was in that goddamn gas?” Isaac rounds on Sam. 

“Don’t know,” Sam says tersely. “He was fine an hour ago.”

That’s true, Isaac thinks. This crazy, bad-trip behavior is new. He keeps spitting blood.

 

_ “I’m going to shoot one of you in the neck if you don’t tie me up,” Mason says. His hands are shaking. His fingers are aching around the nails. _

_ Isaac looks at him like he’s grown another head. Sam looks like he always does. “You into something we have to talk about?” Isaac asks, but the joke isn’t in it.  _

_ The shaking is getting worse.  _ Come on it would be easy _ he thinks _ you have a gun. You know you’re a better shot than either of them. 

It’s not like you have anything to lose anyway. 

_ “No!” He slams his hands against the wall, feeling the pain from the skin breaking open. “No, no NO!” His lungs are burning. _

_ There’s no reason for him not to do it.  _

_ “You have to tie me up,” Mason says. _

_ He can see Isaac about to say something clever. So Mason interrupts him, “I want to shoot you in the neck,” he says, “do you understand how much I want to shoot you in the neck?” _ _  
_

_ His lungs are burning. His head is killing him. He must have hit it somewhere. _

_ Sam is the one to restrain him. Isaac is watching from somewhere in Mason’s peripheral vision. _

_ He fights Sam the entire way, almost biting him, clawing at his arms, kicking.  _ What are you fucking five? Just break his hold already, kill him. You want to kill him. 

_ The chair is bolted to the floor. He should know that because he designed this fucking room. Instead he knows that because he throws himself forward again and again and again and _

 

“What was in that gas?” Isaac asks again. There's no high in this shit. Not from where he's looking, anyway.

“Don’t know,” Sam says again. He still hasn’t moved. He’s running through some kind of mental calculation, Isaac can see it in how he’s looking at the two of them. 

 

_ It’s an easy job. Go in, get the goods, get out again. No human mark this time either, just a few million credits worth of yet another illicit something. Isaac jokes about stealing some for himself. Both Mason and Sam glare at him. _

_ Mason’s maybe going to have a kid one day. He doesn’t know if the dad doing any shit can affect them, but he doesn’t want to risk it.  _

_ It’s in canisters. Six of them in total. If they carry two each, they should be good.  _

_ All they have to do is bring it to the car, then drive to the drop off point. The credit transfer has already taken place.  _

_ Simple, right? But these canisters look old. Dinosaur tech, no one uses these things. Outside of really specific inhalants, of course, which is what these have to be.  _

_ Isaac whistles, “No wonder we’re being paid a couple mil,” he says. He grabs two canisters. “These look safe enough though.” _

 

Mason opens his mouth to plead again. The shaking is getting worse. Before the words can escape there’s a bang. His eyes go wide as a perfect little hole appears in the space between his eyes. 

He slumps in his chair, going lax against the ropes. And like that, there’s nothing there anymore. Just another corpse. 

 

“Locus!” Felix shouts, rounding on him. He ignores Mason’s body. “What the  _ fuck _ was  _ that _ ?” 

“He asked.” There’s something underneath the two syllables. Felix doesn’t really care. 

Locus puts the gun back in its holster. It’s one of many, of course. 

“You shot him,” Felix repeats unnecessarily. 

 

_ Something breaks in one of Mason’s canisters while they’re heading back to the car. He’s still inside the building. Sam slams the door in his face. The gas is a sickly sort of green, and according to Mason it smells like shit and sulfur. He coughs, manages to cut the gas off and it disperses.  _

_ He opens the door from the inside. “Let’s get this shit to the drop off point,” he says. “I don’t want it in my car longer than necessary.” _

 

“Come on,” Locus says. “The gas should start leaking in about now.” 

“Right,” Felix says. “You’re not going to tell his wife?”

Locus shrugs. “I’ll say he died off world. He told her he was some kind of traveling job, after all.”

Felix leaves the room first. Locus shuts the door behind them. Half way down the hall, there’s the dull roar of the gas igniting. 

Hey, at least they still got the money. 

“You think he could’ve survived that stuff?”

“You think I would have shot him if I did?”

Fair point.

 

_ “You feeling okay?” Isaac asks. Mason is coughing so hard it feels like his eyes’ll fall out.  _

You could just shoot them _ he thinks.  _ It would be easy.

_ “Yeah, man,” Mason says between coughs. “Shit, I can’t imagine getting high off that stuff.” _

 

“You’re not allowed to shoot me, even if I get that fucked up,” Felix says. “Not ever. I’m not a fucking crazy person.”

Locus isn’t looking at him. He’s working on something on his phone. “Found a potential contract off planet,” he says, “it’s military.” Off planet is good. Mason was their main link to anyone who’d want them to stay alive, and well, he’s out of the picture.    


“Isn’t that your no-touch zone?” Felix says. 

“Yes,” Locus says. “But look at this.” He holds his phone up so Felix can see the screen. 

Felix whistles. “Man,” he says, “now that’s a lot of zeroes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [CuChulainn X19](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/6103597/CuChulainn-X19) for characterization help and for generally being willing to read whatever I throw at him.


End file.
